Opinion / Columnist
The Herald, Kangura, and Radio Mille Collines' and incitement to genocide
15 Sep 2016 at 05:18hrs | Views
Yesterday I wrote an article denouncing The Herald's incitement to genocide over the article the paper ran about an alleged tribalistic Bosso 'fan' yesterday.
Today, as expected, The Herald has responded. But they would not respond to me directly and 'elevate' my opinion, nor would they 'capitulate' and retract their story. No, The Herald and those behind it are not in the business of right, but might. So, instead, they further incite today.
The Herald can do this of course on the firm security that as a Zanu-PF paper they have the power of life and death over dissenting and counselling opinion. So they will exclude any reprimanding view and steam on. It is game on … literally!
Very well …
But I will not be quiet, or silenced. Thankfully, there are other media outlets out there who will publish my views, and those of other similarly concerned citizens, who will not participate in the second imprisonment of the truth and be accessories to a second 'collective programming of minds' to do bad things - again!
But before we go on, some nick-picking.
In its online publication yesterday, The Herald subtitled its 'story': "Shameless tribalist spoils Bosso party!" Today, the uppercase-formatted title is: "DERANGED BOSSO FAN COMES UNDER FIRE". And of course, in my yesterday's retort to The Herald's story, I listed, as one of my questions, how it was The Herald knew the 'fan' was a Bosso 'fan'? So, their bold retort today is that HE IS A BOSSO FAN! And of course 'headlining' the new title this way puts a finality to the point, secured on the knowledge that I will not be afforded by The Herald the opportunity to interrogate the point further.
Thankfully, that has worked in my favour, and this way….
The greater political point has now been established by The Herald, firmly, and truly. Based on that alleged Bosso 'fan', the political point is this: Bosso fan equals Highlanders FC, Highlanders FC equals Ndebele, and Ndebele equals anti-Shona tribalist.
Again, we have seen this before, Mthwakazi, when the formula was: Zapu equals 'dissident' and 'dissident' equals Ndebele, therefore KILL ALL!
So the labelling and collectivization of one group by another is back (well, has never died). No such word exists to mean this but I will use it here all the same. We are seeing again collective guilt by 'logication'; by ascription. 'Boys are lazy, Thando is a boy, therefore Thando is lazy', that sort of 'logic'. But life is never altogether logical. In fact, some of its best precepts are illogical, crazy even!
To the politically uninitiated, to those who still believe they can attach to Zimbabweists attributes of normalcy found in other human beings, this is all about a small thing in football, it doesn't matter! There is no need to be alarmist! True, if it ended there, but it has not, courtesy of The Herald!
Genocides and tribal wars don't just come that day, that morning, unforeseen or without prior preparation. With rogue regimes such as ours, great preparatory work is done; drip, drip, drip … and often over years (Nazi Germany)! Depending on the urgency, it can even be in months, as was the case in Rwanda.
But who are the linchpins, the true and active co-architects to genocides and tribal wars?
You didn't have to guess it. The media!
There can be no genocide or tribal war without the media. The media is the platform through which direct, coded and constructive notices and instructions are given spatially and temporally to co-perpetrators and accessories across the country, quickly, calculatedly, and with spread. And this brings me to The Herald, Kangura, and Radio Mille Collines' (RTLM).
Many will know that Kangura was a Rwandese newspaper that fuelled the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and Radio Mille Collines was of course a radio station. After the genocide, many of the people involved with Kangura and Radio Mille Collines were tried either by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) or the new Rwandese governments, and jailed for their roles in the Rwanda genocide.
But with The Herald, The Chronicle, and The Sunday Mail (and even the ZBC) we are talking of papers (and a broadcasting station) that are not new to co-ownership of a genocide. They all co-own the Gukurahundi genocide! And just to be clear, there is no insinuation here that either The Chronicle or Sunday Mail have done anything wrong on this occasion. They have not. The sole culprit, on this particular occasion, is The Herald.
Rather than bore readers with what Kangura and Radio Mille Collines people did, let me just share a link to a short article about them I found on the internet (there are thousands of sources about these by the way, including the ICTR records). The link is: http://www.hscentre.org/sub-saharan-africa/media-tool-war-propaganda-rwandan-genocide/
For those who will not wish to access the article, let me share a few quotes from that article that are directly pertinent here. And here goes …
"Following the RPF invasion, media outlets such as the newspaper 'Kangura', 'Radio Rwanda' and in 1993 'Radio Mille Collines' (RTLM), became tools of mass propaganda. These media sources portrayed extreme ethnic distinctions, defining Tutsis as 'the enemy' and Kangura published the infamous Hutu 'Ten Commandments', a widely circulated, militant 'Hutu Power' doctrine."
Does this have any ring with the Grand Plan, Mthwakazi, and the Shonalization and de-Ndebelelization of uMthwakazi since the Zimbabwe Project took office in 1980?
The article proceeds: "Sometimes popular music was mixed with incitement to murder. Propaganda fuelled hysterical fear of Tutsis and blurred the line between the RPF and domestic Tutsis. Consequently, Tutsis in general were identified as an 'invading force' and in emphasising the 'alienness', cleverness and deceitfulness of Tutsis, propaganda established them as a 'permanent threat'".
Has any Mthwakazian forgotten the politically taunting and accusing songs played by the ZBC in the early 1980's, songs like 'swe, swe, maruza!', by a not so unwell-known Shona 'artist' now in flirtatious association with democracy from distant shores?
And how about the current view, and not so disguised by The Herald's articles of yesterday and today, that the Ndebele are 'aliens' from KwaZulu-Natal who must be driven back there, and that the Ndebele are 'militant' bastards who can strike anytime and need be liquidated at any opportunity? (Ignore for a moment that the Shona are themselves Zaireans and that one of their largest populations today is to be found in KwaZulu-Natal, before you even count the rest of South Africa!) Remember, that message from Gukurahundi they repeated over and over again as they harvested uMthwakazi?
And the article goes on: "What made propaganda particularly effective was the simultaneous dehumanisation of Tutsi and the legitimisation of their extermination. The 'Ten Commandments' had revived historically divisive ethnic myths, whilst Kangura and RTLM referred to Tutsis as Inyenzi (cockroaches), creating a dehumanising discourse."
And who are 'dissidents' Mthwakazi, to this day? 'Chuff', to be driven away from a Shona Zimbabwe? And has what Gukurahundi started by a gun stopped by use of other means? And how about those patronising modern choruses spewing from Zimbabwe's modern democrats - all of them who participated in Gukurahundi in one way or another - designed, not to achieve justice, but to dowse a raging subterranean fire from Mthwakazi? For Mthwakazi to accept wrong as right? For Mthwakazi to swap victimhood for inane promise?
And then we come directly to what The Herald is doing today, and did yesterday. The above article writes: "The emphasis on 'inherent' differences was crucial in presenting the 'risk' posed by Tutsis." That is, Tutsis to the Hutus.
After yesterday and today's stories by The Herald, is there any doubt in any Mthwakazian's mind today, now, who it is The Herald is saying is a 'risk' to the Shona? Are you supposed to be dumb enough to think it's Bosso FC? Are you?
And yet another crucial point about The Herald's behaviour noted by the same article: "A lack of alternative media sources in Rwanda contributed to the attention these outlets received." With The Herald having driven me out of town - because they will not run my opinion - the stage is all theirs. The Herald will spew Paul Mundandi and his editor's poisonous stuff with regal liberty and impunity. The message directly to the Shona is: there is no alternative view out there about their view. The Shona will think what Paul Mundandi and his editior and their handlers want, and that is, that the Ndebeles are about to kill them (the Shona). Kill them (the Ndebele) first while we hold the keys to the armoury, before they kill you!
A related point about genocide and similar orchestrated tribal wars.
Without exception, and invariably, the architects of genocide and tribal wars work with 'moderate' groups and 'moderate' personalities (collaborators) from the victim or targeted ethnic group. Indeed, 'moderate' Jews in Nazi Germany and 'moderate' Tutsis in Rwanda were convicted together with Nazi and Hutu genocidaires for various crimes related to those genocides. Again, to be clear, nothing is being alleged or insinuated about Mthwakazians who were contacted by The Herald yesterday, and whose views have been reported so generously by The Herald today. Still, this point is salutary - and true!
So we come to The Herald story of today about the same topic.
Conniving as The Herald and its handlers are, they have walked all the way from Harare (don't take it literally) to find Ndumiso Gumede and others (presumably Makhosini Hadebe is Ndebele??) to find Mthwakazians who are 'moderate', 'national', and 'voices of reason', and systematically excluded other Mthwakazians who may have given a truly Mthwakazi view. Gloatingly, The Herald can now stand up and claim, as it does, that it has sought and obtained Mthwakazi views on the matter, therefore its reportage is balanced.
Yeah, right …. !
And, finally, bingo …! Genocide is by definition a governmental act perpetrated in the name of the State - but denied! Denial is a critical definitional element of genocide. And who has The Herald run to today for cover when its machinations have been exposed?
So, as of today, it is no longer just The Herald that has spoken and expressed the denial, Mthwakazi, but the Government!
I go back to what I said yesterday about that 'Bosso fan'. That 'Bosso fan' is the victim, not the villain. The true villains, are The Herald, a Government that has rather expectedly sided with their agent, against an act that can ordinarily be expected to be seen at a football game.
As some commenters to my article yesterday (and The Herald today) have so eloquently said, football fans of all teams have done and continue to do what that alleged Bosso fan did on Sunday - excited banter - and no one has ever placed any political bite to it.
The real question, then, is: Why has The Herald chosen to do so and do so in this particularly tribalistic inciting way, and for the Government to have chosen to support it today?
--------------
Vuli Moyo <vuli.moyo@gmx.com
Today, as expected, The Herald has responded. But they would not respond to me directly and 'elevate' my opinion, nor would they 'capitulate' and retract their story. No, The Herald and those behind it are not in the business of right, but might. So, instead, they further incite today.
The Herald can do this of course on the firm security that as a Zanu-PF paper they have the power of life and death over dissenting and counselling opinion. So they will exclude any reprimanding view and steam on. It is game on … literally!
Very well …
But I will not be quiet, or silenced. Thankfully, there are other media outlets out there who will publish my views, and those of other similarly concerned citizens, who will not participate in the second imprisonment of the truth and be accessories to a second 'collective programming of minds' to do bad things - again!
But before we go on, some nick-picking.
In its online publication yesterday, The Herald subtitled its 'story': "Shameless tribalist spoils Bosso party!" Today, the uppercase-formatted title is: "DERANGED BOSSO FAN COMES UNDER FIRE". And of course, in my yesterday's retort to The Herald's story, I listed, as one of my questions, how it was The Herald knew the 'fan' was a Bosso 'fan'? So, their bold retort today is that HE IS A BOSSO FAN! And of course 'headlining' the new title this way puts a finality to the point, secured on the knowledge that I will not be afforded by The Herald the opportunity to interrogate the point further.
Thankfully, that has worked in my favour, and this way….
The greater political point has now been established by The Herald, firmly, and truly. Based on that alleged Bosso 'fan', the political point is this: Bosso fan equals Highlanders FC, Highlanders FC equals Ndebele, and Ndebele equals anti-Shona tribalist.
Again, we have seen this before, Mthwakazi, when the formula was: Zapu equals 'dissident' and 'dissident' equals Ndebele, therefore KILL ALL!
So the labelling and collectivization of one group by another is back (well, has never died). No such word exists to mean this but I will use it here all the same. We are seeing again collective guilt by 'logication'; by ascription. 'Boys are lazy, Thando is a boy, therefore Thando is lazy', that sort of 'logic'. But life is never altogether logical. In fact, some of its best precepts are illogical, crazy even!
To the politically uninitiated, to those who still believe they can attach to Zimbabweists attributes of normalcy found in other human beings, this is all about a small thing in football, it doesn't matter! There is no need to be alarmist! True, if it ended there, but it has not, courtesy of The Herald!
Genocides and tribal wars don't just come that day, that morning, unforeseen or without prior preparation. With rogue regimes such as ours, great preparatory work is done; drip, drip, drip … and often over years (Nazi Germany)! Depending on the urgency, it can even be in months, as was the case in Rwanda.
But who are the linchpins, the true and active co-architects to genocides and tribal wars?
You didn't have to guess it. The media!
There can be no genocide or tribal war without the media. The media is the platform through which direct, coded and constructive notices and instructions are given spatially and temporally to co-perpetrators and accessories across the country, quickly, calculatedly, and with spread. And this brings me to The Herald, Kangura, and Radio Mille Collines' (RTLM).
Many will know that Kangura was a Rwandese newspaper that fuelled the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and Radio Mille Collines was of course a radio station. After the genocide, many of the people involved with Kangura and Radio Mille Collines were tried either by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) or the new Rwandese governments, and jailed for their roles in the Rwanda genocide.
But with The Herald, The Chronicle, and The Sunday Mail (and even the ZBC) we are talking of papers (and a broadcasting station) that are not new to co-ownership of a genocide. They all co-own the Gukurahundi genocide! And just to be clear, there is no insinuation here that either The Chronicle or Sunday Mail have done anything wrong on this occasion. They have not. The sole culprit, on this particular occasion, is The Herald.
Rather than bore readers with what Kangura and Radio Mille Collines people did, let me just share a link to a short article about them I found on the internet (there are thousands of sources about these by the way, including the ICTR records). The link is: http://www.hscentre.org/sub-saharan-africa/media-tool-war-propaganda-rwandan-genocide/
For those who will not wish to access the article, let me share a few quotes from that article that are directly pertinent here. And here goes …
"Following the RPF invasion, media outlets such as the newspaper 'Kangura', 'Radio Rwanda' and in 1993 'Radio Mille Collines' (RTLM), became tools of mass propaganda. These media sources portrayed extreme ethnic distinctions, defining Tutsis as 'the enemy' and Kangura published the infamous Hutu 'Ten Commandments', a widely circulated, militant 'Hutu Power' doctrine."
Does this have any ring with the Grand Plan, Mthwakazi, and the Shonalization and de-Ndebelelization of uMthwakazi since the Zimbabwe Project took office in 1980?
The article proceeds: "Sometimes popular music was mixed with incitement to murder. Propaganda fuelled hysterical fear of Tutsis and blurred the line between the RPF and domestic Tutsis. Consequently, Tutsis in general were identified as an 'invading force' and in emphasising the 'alienness', cleverness and deceitfulness of Tutsis, propaganda established them as a 'permanent threat'".
Has any Mthwakazian forgotten the politically taunting and accusing songs played by the ZBC in the early 1980's, songs like 'swe, swe, maruza!', by a not so unwell-known Shona 'artist' now in flirtatious association with democracy from distant shores?
And how about the current view, and not so disguised by The Herald's articles of yesterday and today, that the Ndebele are 'aliens' from KwaZulu-Natal who must be driven back there, and that the Ndebele are 'militant' bastards who can strike anytime and need be liquidated at any opportunity? (Ignore for a moment that the Shona are themselves Zaireans and that one of their largest populations today is to be found in KwaZulu-Natal, before you even count the rest of South Africa!) Remember, that message from Gukurahundi they repeated over and over again as they harvested uMthwakazi?
And the article goes on: "What made propaganda particularly effective was the simultaneous dehumanisation of Tutsi and the legitimisation of their extermination. The 'Ten Commandments' had revived historically divisive ethnic myths, whilst Kangura and RTLM referred to Tutsis as Inyenzi (cockroaches), creating a dehumanising discourse."
And who are 'dissidents' Mthwakazi, to this day? 'Chuff', to be driven away from a Shona Zimbabwe? And has what Gukurahundi started by a gun stopped by use of other means? And how about those patronising modern choruses spewing from Zimbabwe's modern democrats - all of them who participated in Gukurahundi in one way or another - designed, not to achieve justice, but to dowse a raging subterranean fire from Mthwakazi? For Mthwakazi to accept wrong as right? For Mthwakazi to swap victimhood for inane promise?
And then we come directly to what The Herald is doing today, and did yesterday. The above article writes: "The emphasis on 'inherent' differences was crucial in presenting the 'risk' posed by Tutsis." That is, Tutsis to the Hutus.
After yesterday and today's stories by The Herald, is there any doubt in any Mthwakazian's mind today, now, who it is The Herald is saying is a 'risk' to the Shona? Are you supposed to be dumb enough to think it's Bosso FC? Are you?
And yet another crucial point about The Herald's behaviour noted by the same article: "A lack of alternative media sources in Rwanda contributed to the attention these outlets received." With The Herald having driven me out of town - because they will not run my opinion - the stage is all theirs. The Herald will spew Paul Mundandi and his editor's poisonous stuff with regal liberty and impunity. The message directly to the Shona is: there is no alternative view out there about their view. The Shona will think what Paul Mundandi and his editior and their handlers want, and that is, that the Ndebeles are about to kill them (the Shona). Kill them (the Ndebele) first while we hold the keys to the armoury, before they kill you!
A related point about genocide and similar orchestrated tribal wars.
Without exception, and invariably, the architects of genocide and tribal wars work with 'moderate' groups and 'moderate' personalities (collaborators) from the victim or targeted ethnic group. Indeed, 'moderate' Jews in Nazi Germany and 'moderate' Tutsis in Rwanda were convicted together with Nazi and Hutu genocidaires for various crimes related to those genocides. Again, to be clear, nothing is being alleged or insinuated about Mthwakazians who were contacted by The Herald yesterday, and whose views have been reported so generously by The Herald today. Still, this point is salutary - and true!
So we come to The Herald story of today about the same topic.
Conniving as The Herald and its handlers are, they have walked all the way from Harare (don't take it literally) to find Ndumiso Gumede and others (presumably Makhosini Hadebe is Ndebele??) to find Mthwakazians who are 'moderate', 'national', and 'voices of reason', and systematically excluded other Mthwakazians who may have given a truly Mthwakazi view. Gloatingly, The Herald can now stand up and claim, as it does, that it has sought and obtained Mthwakazi views on the matter, therefore its reportage is balanced.
Yeah, right …. !
And, finally, bingo …! Genocide is by definition a governmental act perpetrated in the name of the State - but denied! Denial is a critical definitional element of genocide. And who has The Herald run to today for cover when its machinations have been exposed?
So, as of today, it is no longer just The Herald that has spoken and expressed the denial, Mthwakazi, but the Government!
I go back to what I said yesterday about that 'Bosso fan'. That 'Bosso fan' is the victim, not the villain. The true villains, are The Herald, a Government that has rather expectedly sided with their agent, against an act that can ordinarily be expected to be seen at a football game.
As some commenters to my article yesterday (and The Herald today) have so eloquently said, football fans of all teams have done and continue to do what that alleged Bosso fan did on Sunday - excited banter - and no one has ever placed any political bite to it.
The real question, then, is: Why has The Herald chosen to do so and do so in this particularly tribalistic inciting way, and for the Government to have chosen to support it today?
--------------
Vuli Moyo <vuli.moyo@gmx.com
Source - Xoxani Ngxoxo
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